Biggest Defense Contractor of Japan Acknowledges Cyber-Assault against It

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, one prominent defense contractor in Japan found that Web-hackers had infringed upon the security of its PC-network during August 2011, thus published Eweek.com dated September 19, 2011.

Actually, on September 18, 2011, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries disclosed that malware was used to infect the company's about 38 PCs and 45 servers at 10 locations across the country along with the Yokohama headquarters of the contractor. The contractor identified a minimum of 8 separate malware items; with some being information-stealing PC-Trojans that were utilized for the August 2011 hack.

Informing more about the cyber-assaults, a Spokesman representing US-based Mitsubishi disclosed that the servers, which were compromised, belonged to the Kobe shipyards of Mitsubishi, a place the company used for constructing diesel-electric submarines as well as nuclear power grid components; the Nagasaki shipyards of the company, and the Nagoya plant too that drew and fabricated systems for missile guidance. ComputerWorld.com reported this on September 19, 2011.

The Spokesman said that the magnitude of the infection at Mitsubishi was indeed unprecedented.

According to him, a few system info like IP addresses was found exposed and that was eerie enough. It couldn't be that more data leakage didn't occur, however, crucial databases regarding the company's technologies and products had been maintained secure, he added. Theregister.co.uk reported this on September 19, 2011.

In the meantime, assaults targeting defense contractors are frequent, according to the latest news. Previously this year (2011), L-3 Communications and Lockheed Martin reported cyber-attacks against them through a blow, which used information seized in the former massive hack at RSA.

Incidentally, blame of alleged spying assaults targeting defense contractors or power companies are frequently imposed against China, though the country vehemently disagrees with it. The reason why China is blamed is because the assaults are faked to originate from a hijacked Chinese system, alternatively regional peculiarities as also the languages utilized within malicious code that's more difficult for spoofing yet are inconclusive.

And whilst the Spokesman stated that Mitsubishi hadn't pointedly indicated the cyber-assaults' source, however, according to many security researchers, government-backed Chinese hackers were those who executed the online-assault in question.